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it once, since it is mine.”
    But he took his breath deeply again and he shook his head and he went back to the town house. Then he led out his four men and he went quickly and he was glad to be gone, as though there were some power over him here yet from his old father, and he was one who would have no power over him of any kind.
    So did the other two sons yearn also to be free of their father. The eldest son longed to have the three years of mourning past and he longed to put the old man’s tablet away into the little loft over the great hall where the other tablets were kept, because so long as it stood where it did every day in the hall it seemed as though Wang Lung were watching these sons of his. Yes, there his spirit was, seated in the tablet, watching his sons, and his eldest son longed to be free to live for his pleasure and to spend his father’s money as he would. But he could not, so long as that tablet was there, put his hand freely into his girdle and take his pleasure where he would, and there were these years of mourning to be passed, when it is not decent for a son to be too merry. Thus upon this idle man, whose mind was ever running upon secret pleasures, the old man still laid his restraining power.
    As for the second son, he had his schemes too, and he longed to turn certain of the fields into money because he had a plan to enlarge his grain business and buy over some of the markets of Liu the merchant who grew old and whose son was a scholar and did not love his father’s shops, and with so large a business Wang the Second could ship grain out of that region and even to foreign countries near by. But it is scarcely seemly to do such great things while mourning is yet going on, and so Wang the Second could but possess himself in patience and wait and say little except to ask his brother as though idly,
    “When these days of mourning are over what will you do with your land—sell it or what?”
    And the elder brother replied with seeming carelessness, “Well, I do not know yet. I have scarcely thought, but I suppose I must keep enough to feed us, seeing I have no business as you have and at my age I can scarcely begin a new thing.”
    “But land will be a trouble to you,” said his brother. “If you are a landlord you must see to the tenants and you must go yourself to weigh out grain and there are many very wearisome such things for a landlord to do if he is to make his living at all. As for me, I did these things for my father, but I cannot do them for you, for I have my own affairs now. I shall sell all but the very best land and invest the silver at high interest and we will see who will get rich the more quickly, you or I.”
    Now Wang the Eldest heard this with the greatest envy for he knew he needed a great deal of money and more than he had, and he said weakly,
    “Well, I shall see, and it may be I will sell more than I thought I would, perhaps, and put the money out at interest with yours, but we shall see.”
    But without knowing it when they talked of selling the land they dropped their voices low as though they were afraid the old man in the land might hear them still.
    Thus these two waited with impatience, for the three years to be over. And Lotus waited, too, and grumbled as she waited, because it was not fitting for her to wear silk these three years and she must wear her mourning faithfully and she groaned because she was so weary of the cotton things she wore and she could not go out to feasts and be merry with her friends except secretly. For Lotus in her age had begun to make merry with some five or six old ladies in other well-to-do houses and these old ladies went about in their sedans from this house to that to game and to feast and to gossip. None of them had any cares now that they could not bear children any more and if their lords lived they had turned to younger women.
    Among these old ladies Lotus complained often of Wang Lung and she said,
    “I gave that man the best